FRANKFURT — The European Commission on Wednesday recommended that Estonia be allowed to adopt the euro next year despite a critical report from the European Central Bank.

The divergent views evoked a similar split a decade ago over Greece’s readiness to join the euro zone, which is now struggling with a sovereign debt crisis set off by Greece.

Estonia clearly meets the criteria for euro membership set out in the Maastricht Treaty “as a result of determined and efficient efforts by the Estonian government and Estonian people,” the commission said. Estonia aims to join the euro zone on Jan. 1.

The central bank, which has bought government bonds and taken other unprecedented measures in recent days to defend the euro from the fallout of Greece’s debt, offered a more negative assessment of Estonia’s qualifications. While Estonia is well within the limits on government spending and debt, it has a history of high inflation that raises concerns, the central bank said in an unusually blunt report.

The central bank did not explicitly say that Estonia should be denied, and its opinion would not be binding on European Union governments, which will make the final decision.

In the past, political leaders have brushed off central bank concerns in their eagerness to expand the zone. Greece won admission even after the central bank reported in 2000 that the country’s debt equaled 104 percent of gross domestic product, far above the limit of 60 percent in the Maastricht Treaty.

The central bank also said that Greek inflation met targets only because of declines in oil prices and other exceptional factors.

The commission said that Estonia must remain vigilant against inflation but otherwise gave the country high marks.

“Estonia has achieved a high degree of sustainable economic convergence and is ready to adopt the euro” on Jan. 1, Olli Rehn, the European Union commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said in a statement. “We commend Estonia for its longstanding commitment to prudent policies.”

Estonia remains determined to join on schedule, a government spokeswoman said.

“The euro zone’s purpose is to expand,” Piret Seeman, a spokeswoman for the Estonian Ministry of Finance, said. If a European Union member state aiming to join the euro zone also meets the Maastricht criteria, “there should not be any problem.”

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Both the central bank and the European Commission expressed doubts about the progress of other Eastern European countries. “In many countries, important challenges have come to the fore related to previously accumulated imbalances and vulnerabilities,” the central bank said.

The commission said that the other eight nations in line to join the euro, all of them in Eastern Europe with the exception of Sweden, “have made uneven progress on the road to the single currency.”

Polish leaders have said that they are in no hurry to join in any case. “The euro zone is now like a house that needs some work, repainting and refurbishing,” the finance minister, Jacek Rostowski, told Radio Zet on Wednesday, according to Reuters. “As with all such works, there is some noise and dust, so it’s maybe better that we are in our own little house and in a few years, when the euro zone is refurbished, we move there.”

But Mr. Rehn said the euro remained attractive to new members. “There is no queue out of the euro,” he said in Brussels. “There is a queue into the euro.”

In categories other than inflation, Estonia scored well in the central bank’s biennial Convergence Report, which assesses the progress that countries in the European Union, but not the euro, are making toward economic harmonization. Preparation of the report was overseen by Jürgen Stark, a member of the central bank’s executive board who is known as a hard-liner on inflation and fiscal discipline.

Estonia’s total debt was only 7.2 percent of G.D.P., far below the 60 percent limit. Prices in Estonia have fallen recently, but only because economic output fell 14 percent last year, the report said. Estonia’s history of steep inflation suggests that price increases could resume when growth recovers.

A version of this article appears in print on May 13, 2010, on Page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Estonia’s Adoption of Euro Advances, Despite Concerns From Central Bank. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe